The Urban Audit provides European urban statistics for 258 cities across 27 European countries.  It contains almost 300 statistical indicators presenting information on matters such as demography, society, the economy, the environment, transport, the information society and leisure.

The Urban Audit was conducted at the initiative of the Directorate-General for Regional Policy at the European Commission, in cooperation with EUROSTAT and the national statistical offices of the 25 current Member States plus Bulgaria and Romania .

For more technical information and variable level data, please consult the Urban Audit Methodological Handbook on the Eurostat website: www.europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/  and the Urban Audit data on New Cronos.

What is Urban The Urban Audit aims at a balanced and representative sample of cities in Europe. To obtain such a selection, a few simple rules were followed:

1. Approximately 20% of the national population should be covered by the Urban Audit.

2. All capital cities were included.

3. Where possible, regional capitals were included.

4. Both large (more than 250 000 inhabitants) and medium-sized cities (minimum 50 000 and maximum 250 000 inhabitants) were included.

5. The selected cities should be geographically dispersed within each Member State.

The selection of cities was prepared in close collaboration between the Directorate-General for Regional Policy, Eurostat and the national statistical institutes. To ensure that large and medium-sized cities are equally represented in the Urban Audit, in some of the larger Member States not all large cities could be included.

The Urban Audit works with three different spatial levels: the city, the larger urban zone (LUZ) and the sub-city district (SCD). The City Level The most important is the city level. To ensure that this level is directly relevant to policy makers and politicians, political boundaries were used to define the city level. In many countries these boundaries are clearly established and well-known. As a result, for most cities the boundary used in the Urban Audit corresponds to the general perception of that city. Due to the highly diverse nature of political boundaries in the European Union, for some cities the political boundary does not correspond to the general perception of that city. In a few cities, Dublin for example, the political boundary of the city is narrower than the general perception of that city.

The Larger Urban Zone

The larger urban zone (LUZ) allows a comparison between the city and its surroundings. The goal was to have an area from a significant share of the resident commute into the city, a concept known as the “functional urban region”. To ensure a good data availability, the Urban Audit works with administrative boundaries that approximate the functional urban region.

For some of the smaller cities, a larger urban zone was not created: Frankfurt an der Oder, Mönchengladbach, Wuppertal, Cayenne, Fort-de-France, Pointe-á-Pitre, Saint-Denis, Galway, Aveiro, Braga, Coimbra, Funchal, Ponta Delgada, Setubal and Derry. For three large French cities no larger urban zone could be constructed as the city boundaries already included the surroundings: Marseille, Nice and Saint-Etienne.

The Sub-City District

To analyse the disparities within cities, the Urban Audit cities have been divided in sub-city districts. To ensure that these districts can be compared, they had to comply with strict population thresholds: minimum 5 000 inhabitants and maximum 40 000 inhabitants. Almost all sub-city districts comply with these thresholds. Nine cities were too small to be divided into sub-city districts: Galway, Ancona, Campobasso, Caserta, Catanzaro, l’Aquila, Perugia, Pescara and Linz.

London and Paris

For London and Paris, the territorial level for which there is a mayor, i.e. Greater London and la Ville de Paris, does not yield comparable spatial units. Greater London has a population of 7.2 million in-habitants, whereas la Ville de Paris only has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants.

To facilitate better comparison between the two largest cities in Europe and with other large cities, an additional city level was created for both cities.

For London, a smaller city level, called “Inner London,” was created which is roughly comparable to la Ville de Paris in terms of size. “Inner London” consists of the City of London and the twelve most central boroughs: Camden, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Westminster. Greater London and Inner London have the same larger urban zone.

For Paris, a larger city level, called “Paris et petite couronne,” was constructed which is roughly comparable to Greater London. “Paris et petite couronne” includes the city of Paris and the three surrounding départements: Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne. La Ville de Paris and Paris et petite couronne have the same larger urban zone.